Dylan and Alexia in PLUS

Opening Night

Dylan and Alexis Vassilatos at the opening night at Artspace. The exhibition is on till the 16th of September. foto Lisa Hnatowicz FOTO24

Bronze Frames

Title: Wish you were here
Medium: Oil on wood with bronze frame

Title: Bird Cage
Medium: Oil on wood with bronze frame

Write-up in The Weekender

The Weekender

Some work in progress

Join Us For a Glass of Wine

IN ARMS

Dylan Graham

An exhibition capturing the ambiguities and dualities of people and phenomena

27 August 2009 18h00


Please join us for a glass of wine and to meet the artist

Artspace Chester Court 142 Jan Smuts Avenue Parkwood 2193
Tel +27 (0) 11 880 8802 Fax +27 (0) 86 649 8551
Mobile +27 (0) 82 651 47 02
Email artspace@wol.co.za
Hours Tues to Fri 10h00 - 17h30 Sat 10h00 - 15h30
http://www.artspace-jhb.co.za/

Preview by Appointment
Exhibition ends 16 September 2009

In Arms

In Arms

When choosing a theme, image or approach for the making of a painting, there are various angles from which to proceed. Some artists want to ‘say’ something relating to (for instance) politics or contemporary issues. Some are haunted by disturbing or pleasing images, and seek to explore these relentlessly. A glance at the range of visual imagery in Graham’s paintings shows that neither of these approaches are relevant, and that a great many different kinds of objects and scenes are painted. Dustbins, brooms, bird cages, toys and people appear. Graham strives toward the unbiased observation of whatever presents itself and so doing captures the ambiguities and dualities present within people, and phenomena. In this way life and death, the beautiful and the ugly, virtue and vice are seen to co-exist, sometimes to blur or merge, and to be forever equally present, however we may favour or privilege some aspects of human nature and existence above others. The result is a rare and direct confrontation in the artwork with what is as such.

Rather than making art where message, narrative and/or concept are key, Graham strives to work at each painting free of preconceived ideas and the baggage of art discourse, as far as is possible for the trained artist. Here a strange incongruity appears, as Graham can be regarded as a ‘traditionalist’, yet does not intend to appropriate or borrow from the past. Thus the artist’s figures and portraits approach the psychological depth of Rembrandt’s representations, and yet Graham has ‘only’ tried to paint – brushstroke for brushstroke, confronting the canvas in the language of the painterly medium: colour, surface, placing, light and dark, tactile presence. Graham can, and does, observe and represent, but the images are called forth with hermeneutic honesty and directness: not as renditions but as apparitions or ‘guests’ called forth by the artist’s absence of attachment. In a vaguely numinous way, Graham’s figures and objects appear from a non-specified depth (visually and psychically), as present-at-hand in the Heideggerian sense, neutrally reposing in themselves. The artist arrives at the canvas, labours without assumption, facilitates the artwork into being and, lastly, steps aside for the viewer to determine the outcomes and implications.